The possibility of resuscitating the gas connection with France to increase the energy autonomy of the European Union and lower the russian gas dependencywhich has begun to have a significant degree of consensus in our country, does not have French backing. The neighboring country, as EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, a newspaper that belongs to the same group as this medium, has learned, is not in favor of recovering the MidCat interconnection project, to link the Iberian Peninsula with the Gallic country, through Catalonia.
The Spanish Government has revived this idea, after the Foreign Ministry pointed out, even before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, that our country could be the “alternative” to provide fuel. Thus, the idea of the interconnection with France, that would make it possible to send to Europe the gas that Spain receives directly from Algeria and the one that can be regasified in our country, since there are seven plants to reconvert liquefied gasbought from other countries and transported by ship to Spanish ports.
Initially, even the Ministry of Ecological Transition was opposed, but the President of the Government himself, Pedro Sánchez, accepted the proposal, with the condition that he has ended up convincing the third vice president and ‘green’ minister of the Executive, Teresa Ribera, that channel not only gas, but also clean energy, such as green hydrogen. With the outbreak of war in Eastern Europe and the open debate on the need not to help Russia finance the conflict with the purchase of gas, the Spanish offer has become increasingly relevant. Sánchez, during his recent visit to Latvia, stated in an informal conversation with journalists that he will ask Brussels to finance this infrastructure.
“Not before 2030”
But the project does not currently have the indispensable support of France. sources of the Energy Regulation Commission (CRE), consulted by this newspaper, assure that in the face of “the current crisis, in the short term, obviously Midcat is not a solution since it would be impossible to foresee the commissioning before 2030“. In the opinion of this independent administrative authority, which ensures the proper functioning of the gas and electricity markets in France, “Spain already has a capacity to export gas to the north of 220 GWh/d with the current infrastructure”.
Precisely the Commission de Régulation de l’Énergie and the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) knocked down in January 2019 the Enagás proposal and the Teréga interconnection gala for the first phase of Midcat due to its high cost and lack of profitability, despite the fact that at that time it had the approval of the EU. A year later he was off the list of priority projects in Brussels. This is just what they also remember from the CRE. That the abandonment of the project was a joint decision of France and Spain because the expense was “disproportionate with respect to the possible benefits” and because Paris has opted “for the decarbonization of the European energy mix“.
Rejection of public opinion
Other French sources consulted by this newspaper point out precisely that the project does not have the support of public opinion in France, a country with a great ecological tradition, and also generates rejection in the border towns that would be affected by the infrastructure. To these autochthonous reasons they also add the reflection that the connection with Spain is not really a necessity since Europe can be supplied with gas, for example through ships from the US, which can reach northern Germany, one of the EU countries most dependent on Russian fuel (60%).
Faced with these reflections, Spanish diplomatic sources counter that the argument that the connection would not be completed until 2030 is not entirely true. Once the EU gave its go-ahead for funding, they point out, everything would be a matter of accelerating the construction of the link between France and Spain. In fact, the Government does not renounce this interconnection but on the contrary, Sánchez is looking for allies to promote the project.
Sanchez Tour
The chief executive will start this Wednesday a eight country tour to obtain decouple gas prices from electricity prices, make centralized purchases in wholesale markets, develop renewable energies as much as possible, as well as energy interconnections with Europe, according to what the spokeswoman, Isabel Rodríguez, pointed out today. The first meeting will be in Madrid with the Prime Minister of Croatia in the morning and, in the afternoon, she will travel to Slovakia, Romania, Italy – with a meeting there also with Portugal and Greece -, Germany and Ireland. Even though Moncloa has not yet provided the date of the appointment with Emmanuel Macron in Parismost likely it can be done next week.
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This Monday, in a forum organized by ‘La Vanguardia’, Teresa Ribera defended that “It is very difficult to move forward” with France in terms of energy interconnections. “In the same way that we have been struggling to accelerate electrical interconnections, what cannot be is that the pressure to accelerate this infrastructure stays from the Pyrenees down, because on the other side of the Pyrenees a fairly large investment is needed to connect that pipeline. of gas to the trunk system,” he stressed.